The Show

You may have heard people say, “Show, don’t tell”, in response to your anxiety over a presentation that you must do. In response, you put together a delightful PowerPoint presentation that communicates very clearly all of your great ideas. You spend hours surfing for the perfect image that communicates innovation. You obsess over the choice between a bunny coming out of a magician’s hat and the smiley face guy with a light bulb over his head. Clipart is decoration not communication.

We’ve all had the experience of being in the audience as a presenter clicks to a slide with eight bullet points. As he/she starts discussing the first one, we read all eight. Now we’re bored. They lost us.

The best presenters don’t structure their presentations by thinking: What is the next point I should make? Instead, they decide: What is the next question I want my audience to wrestle with?

I talk about this concept regularly with facilitators when I am training them. The difference between training and facilitating is, when training, you tend to stand at the front of a room and talk AT people. When facilitating, you are facilitating conversation by asking questions that require the participants to think.

Ultimately, the greatest learning opportunities come about when knowledge and experience are shared, where collaboration is encouraged and PowerPoint no longer becomes a fallback option.